Garden Design Class in a Single Pic

Hello gorgeous, below.
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You got me with your almost brutally modern architecture, smashed into historic Garden Design.
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Then you dropped those orbs with a glint of art nouveau reverie taking a ride with Tinkerbell.
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Your furniture borders on cliche excepting it's an ode to cubism.
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Well do I appreciate the hands & intent pruning, a cocky marvel, to those who know.
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Finally, ending with how lush can you be with the smallest amount of input.
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You're darn tooting I want to see the rest of the garden.
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Pic, above, here.
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Adore garden pics telling a story, and teaching a Garden Design class.
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What do you see, above?
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T

Simple Manipulations: How Many Do You See?

Do you see the manipulations, below?

Seating to create a gathering spot, figs for summer shade/winter sun over the benches, drystack stone wall cut into a slight slope forcing foot traffic into defined directions, formal boxwood framing pastoral views, tapering stone wall allowing only small machinery into the pasture from this direction, gravel terrace ready for men-trucks-heavy equipment, horses, or a catered soiree for 100.
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And, of course, it must all look a century old, be easy to maintain, and provide interest 24/7.
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When something appears simple, it rarely is.  Same is true of people.
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Garden & Be Well,       XO Tara
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Pic at a jobsite last week.
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Do you know the maximum pollinator habitat, above?  Seriously, can you verbalize what creates the best pollinator habitat above?  Answer at bottom.
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Being simple requires each of the decades I've been learning about gardens.  Better, being simple in a garden, takes me where Joseph Campbell says our eternity is.  Ironic, in this American life/era, to have found my bliss in work.
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1. Joseph Campbell - Wikiquote

   en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell‎

   Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own .... And the experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life.
2. More, being simple connects me to the message/life work of Wendell Berry & E.M. Forster.  

3. Wendell Berry Earns Highest Humanities Award, Lectures on ...

   sojo.net/.../wendell-berry-earns-highest-humanities-award-lectures-econo...‎

   Apr 24, 2012 - On Monday evening, Wendell Berry delivered the 41st annual ... The title hinges on E.M. Forster's 1910 novel Howards End, which Berry said, ...
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5.  If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.
   

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   Award winning speaker, hire me to speak to your group, local or out-of-state.

                                                                                    .

   Garden books by Tara Dillard, Amazon.
6. Answer to question, above,  High density/low density, open meadow/dense woodland.

The Table You Want on Your Porch

Rescued: door, windows, stool.  

Love the sexy lines of this stool, we chose it first so more galvanized accouterments placed for balance.  

    

 Dinner table, floral arranging table, potting table, styled table.  Whatever, they're FREE.

During the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival we caught many pairs of friends sitting, visiting, enjoying the breeze, loving the views.

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Susanne Hudson & I sat in the chairs admiring our work.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken earlier this month at the Penny McHenry Hydrangea Festival.  The porch got bigger with the furniture added.  Why?  More function added along with the beautiful forms.   How did Susanne & I get the porch done, we schlepped everything you see into place.  

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No magic minions.

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Passion is the magic.

Fireplace Decorating Ideas

Over my fireplace mantel today.

What do you do with your worn out & broken tools?
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Yes, screwed to the wall.  And each other.

How to Use Heads in Design

Got heads?

They're for

exterior, and

interior.
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Have you noticed a formula for your favorite interiors & exteriors?  Not into formulas?  No worries, formulas are nothing more than Shopping Lists!  Now, I have your attention.
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I've always been drawn to interiors with heads & ......
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In my garden is a decades old collection of broken heads.  Most were a $1.
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Top pic from same home/garden as previous post.  Bottom pics Nicky Haslam, via Cote de Texas article.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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More than heads, bodies too.  And urns with plinths.

How to Copy Interiors into your Garden

She will have a stone roundabout with historic French church gargoyle setting atop a plinth of granite, at its center,  in her garden.

Quickly took pics in their home and realized, once I returned home & saw the pics, her Gargoyle Roundabout will be shaped like the central portion of the chinoiserie pattern, below, and outer line of the massed platters, above.

This happens all the time, designing in the garden and seeing validations inside the home.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pics same garden as previous posts.  She is also the queen of rugs, picking & placing.

Front Porch: Chain Rail

Lunch, below, this week.  Every home seen from the chair I sat in was a century old and white clapboard.  

Front porch columns each have iron rings, below, for chains lost to history, I've already designed their replacement.

With their 'swag' to mach the arch, below.

Will copy a pair of the columns, deeper into the garden, as entry to a garden room with enfilade from the front sidewalk.
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Repetition.
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Notice the power lines, bottom pics?  The bane of my existence for a mature camellia I wish to keep and limb-up into a tree.  They will contact the power company to see what can be done.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics same garden as yesterday's post.

Lisa Porter Collection: Vanishing Threshold

Texture, scale, flow, color, invitation, narrative, poverty cycle, light, fragrance, repetition, simplicity, intellect, ceiling, walls, floors & more.

It's all part of vanishing threshold.
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Garden & Be Well,          XO Tara
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Pic via Lisa Porter Collection.  Take the link, lots of pics, about this home by the beach.  Original article from Traditional Home July 2001.  Photos by Jon Jensen for Traditional Home

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Puppet Barbuda adores this fireplace.  Not at all reminiscent of the stone fireplaces in every flower show across USA redolent of the monolith floating amongst the galaxies at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Best Time To Design

Design your garden for deep winter.

It will be pretty all year.
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Garden & Be Well,      XO Tara
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Pic Belgian Pearls.
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Rosemary Verey wrote the best garden design book, The Garden In Winter.

Large Pots

Something new to desire.

                           
                        And I don't mean man or child.  How did I miss these pots in Paris?

Desire, undervalued & counterintuitive.
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Garden & Be Well,        XO Tara
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Wonder which client past/future will have these in their garden.  Love Magic Man, I know he can make them!  Will have to tack on a pair to an order for me-me-me !
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pics via Paris Through My Lens.

Table Top Design

Mantles, tables, chests, dressers, bookshelves, and their flotsam/jetsom, tell me how to arrange clients gardens.

Do they like simplicity, focal points, pairs, drifts, matchy/watchy, shiny, bright colors, rustic, fru-fru, farm, castle, muted hues, eclectic, showy & etc.

Junking recently I found this dresser for the foyer of my new office.  Once sited I went to the kitchen & started grabbing blue/white.  Free is good.

On its way home, above/below.

What is the Garden Design indicated by the top of this chest with the blue/white?  Girlfriend obviously likes pairs & focal points.  Biggest platter is a gorgeous antique iron gate. Tulipiers are brick/stone columns with pair old urns and the smaller plates a flagstone path. Surface of the chest is groundcover Asiatic jasmine.

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THIS is how I see interiors.  Source material for the garden.

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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara

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Never anticipated my new office being this fun, 'camp chic' style.  Nor psycho-analyzing my own table top style.

Power Of Silhouette: Audrey Hepburn

Perusing quickly I immediately knew this silhouette, below.

Impact was immense.  Silhouettes are a huge Landscape Design tool.  Trees, buildings, shrubs, & etc.  A fresh reminder.
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And it's chiaroscuro too, my favorite time, the gloaming.
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Use silhouettes as a tool in your landscape.  Love what a mature crape myrtle can do with many roof lines.  Perhaps the armillary sundial on plinth?  Patch of rectangular lawn at a huge palladian window.  Pair of round boxwood at a doorway.  You get it.  Constrast the forms.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pic from Habitually Chic. 

Where Landscape Design Begins

Landscape Design begins inside your home.  My 'office' yesterday, below.

When I saw the broad curve of the marble, below, I knew exactly how to shape the stone decking of the new pool.

 She asked for a potager, it reminds her of her father.  The diamonds, below, are repeated sparingly throughout the house.  Diamond shapes will form the new potager, of course.

 A sumptuous limestone mantle being installed, below, yesterday. 

There are 3 pair of stone columns designed in the back garden.  I will cap them with the same limestone/style of the mantle. 
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Garden & Be Well,  XO Tara
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Creating a landscape like this none of the details can be wrong, or even 'off' a bit.  My work must flow with the owners ideas, their architect & interior decorator.  Is your Landscape Design worth any less consideration?  Even if you don't have an architect, decorator, gardener?
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Have been to this site several times thru construction and my little chair/table have been in a dozen spots.  

Apple Espalier In A Tiny Potager

Her potager is barely 3' deep, below.

 No problem planting a pair of espalier apple trees, above.  They require little space.

She offered some of her collards, above, but they were too pretty to pick.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO Tara
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I espalier a lot of things.  Tried a hydrangea espalier?  Lushness without effort, sasanqua's too.  Sometimes, I espalier, truly due to tight space.

How To Choose The Best Urns & Containers

The very best containers?  NEVER NEED PLANTING.

 Any container considered for purchase, ask yourself, "Is this so fabulous it can remain empty?", and, "Will this be fought over at my Estate Sale?"

 These classic beauties, centuries of existence across continents, are classic for a reason.

Size, form, & color are considerations.
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Garden & Be Well,            XO Tara
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Pics from my wholesaler.  These 3 urns are truly my 'go to' urns.

Poke Salad In Landscape Design

Poke Salad, aka Poke Weed, in the foreground, below

Arching tendrils of pearls & foliage contrasting deliciously with the crape myrtle.
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Come thru the gate (you're standing in the street now) & into my Tea Olive Terrace.  Thru the pink crape myrtle blossoms you can see my office windows.
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Poke Salad is great for birds, they love the berries, they mature a deep aubergine.  One year, they ate so much they were pooping, on the fly, and it (purple poo) was landing across the street on my neighbor's white garage door.
Who knew birds were the original Jackson Pollock?
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Garden & Be Well,              XO Tara
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Pic taken in my garden same day as previous pic.

Landscape Design: Macro & Micro

A bit of distance from my garden, macro, below.

 Closer, below, you see colors & textures

 Up-close, below,

you see micro details.
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Do you see my neighbor's house?  It's there.
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I designed this garden space, at my driveway, to greet me as I come/go in my car.  It had been lawn.
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There is not a day in the year this garden is without bloom.
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Maximum pollinator habitat too.  Why/how?  High density, low density, tall plant height, medium plant height, low plant height, contrasting form, year round blooms & groundcovers.
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Pure Bravura. Why?  Drought tolerant, little maintenance.  Full sun area, deciduous trees shade my house in summer & let the winter sun in.  Cha-Ching, savings.
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Garden & Be Well,         XO Tara
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Pics taken near my front door, same day as previous post.

Details in Simplicity

Simplicities: trim color is not a bright white, no window screens, interior window treatments are elegant, lights on inside, contrasting foliage textures, contrasting foliage colors, espaliered lushness upon home, well maintained, easy to maintain, urn is fabulous enough to be empty, urn is not hugging wall of home or frontdoor, classic template of centuries copied, design is elegant in winter, makes me want to see the interior, makes me want to see the rest of the garden, the landscape describes the owners. Front of home, above, and its backyard, below.

Shown in yesterday's post too.

A retired couple lives here. They maintain the garden.

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Two important questions to ask yourself about a pic of your home.

1. Is it so wonderful I must see inside?
2. Is it so wonderful I must see the entire landscape?

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken last week in Athens, GA

Vanishing Threshold

Landscape Design takes advantage of everything you have, inside & outside. Repetition of form

is a subtle, potent, tool.

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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Pics taken a couple of weeks ago. Dahlings, you do realize I don't 'style' pics?

CONE IN EACH ROOM

Each garden room should have a cone shaped evergreen. Bringing eyes to the sky.
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Honestly, dahlings, I don't make this stuff up.
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More honestly. It was the hardest rule to get right. Done correctly cone shaped evergreens appear serendipitous. Lagniappes.
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Ha.................! Anything but.
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Cone shapes, mostly, are inherent in what you've already designed. If not, they're balanced symmetrically/asymmetrically with house or trees or garden room or, or, or.
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They will feel right.
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Study pics of landscapes using cone shaped evergreens correctly. Study-study-study. It took me years to get this right.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic taken in my garden last Thursday. The cone? 2 Italian cypress planted with rootballs touching, beginning in 1 gallon pots. (Proof I'm patient, ha.) Songbirds love nesting in these cypress.
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Studying cone use in Italy it's obvious their style won't work in USA. Why? Don't know. Whenever I see a USA landscape copying an Italian landscape with lots of cones they look stupid. Hmm? Anyone know why?